I'd starve on a crust here, sooner nor I'd stop among
'em. Villains!"
Poor Grind probably substituted the word "sensitive" for another, in his
narrow acquaintance with the English language. Susan Peckaby seemed to
resent this new view of things. She was habited in the very
plum-coloured gown which had been prepared for the start, the white
paint having been got out of it by some mysterious process, perhaps by
the turpentine suggested by Chuff. It looked tumbled and crinkled, the
beauty altogether gone out of it. Her husband, Peckaby, stood behind,
grinning.
"Villains, them saints was, was they?" said he.
"They was villains," emphatically answered Grind.
"And the saintesses?" continued Peckaby--"What of them?"
"The less said about 'em the better, them saintesses," responded Grind.
"We should give 'em another name over here, we should. I had to leave my
eldest girl behind me," he added, lifting his face in a pitying appeal
to Mr. Verner's. "She warn't but fifteen, and one of them men took her,
and she's his thirteenth wife."
"I say, Grind," put in the sharp voice of Mrs.
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